Spontaneous Evolution: an interview with Deepak Chopra by Jo Chávez Interviewing Deepak Chopra, M.D. was truly a gift: it gave me the great opportunity of expanding my perceptions of another human being. When I knew that I would be interviewing Dr. Chopra, my desire was to be able to find the man behind the celebrity. What I found was something much more than just the man. What I found was essence, an individual who consciously experiences the vastness of creation. Jo: Dr. Chopra, you mentioned in your book The Path of Love (released in 1997) that the book's goal was to "heal the split between love and spirit." What is the most significant thing you do, or have done, to heal your own illusion of duality? Deepak: I think it is a spontaneous process. You don't really do anything; it happens. It's part of growing up and growing older — but having said that, I think you can have an inner attitude that when you look at other people, you see them as your equals and never with either superiority or inferiority. Jo: As in when you look at other people and you see God in everybody? Deepak: You see the spirit in everybody, and you also know that you are in the presence of equals and that we are, as the Buddhists would say, inter-beings. We are all inseparably part of the same pattern, and without you there is no me. Jo: When did you have your initiation into meditation? Deepak: In the year 1980. Jo: Was that with Maharishi? Deepak: Yes, it was. Jo: In your Center for Well Being, do you do an initiation process? Deepak: Oh, yes. We have many teachers who are called primordial sound meditation teachers. We have a connection with Maharishi's teacher of the holy tradition, whose name is Shankaracharya. We are directly part of the lineage of Shankaracharya. Jo: What are the difficulties for you in your own growth process? Deepak: I'm embarrassed to say, but there aren't any! I'm in a very settled state of awareness, where I have, really, I can say with confidence, almost infinite peace. I let go of my idea of how things should be. The big picture is much grander than I have ever imagined it to be. Once I decide that, what can go wrong? Jo: As a human being, you have emotions and you deal with them. Could you give me an idea of your relationship with your emotional body? Deepak: I am very, very familiar with it. I know how to witness my emotions and how to define them, express them, release them, share them, and celebrate them. And I am responsible for them. Jo: You have traveled quite extensively, and have been able to see what is going on in the world in terms of the renewal of spirituality. Do you find that this reawakening process is confined to Western cultures and cultures with time and money on their hands? Deepak: It's everywhere. I have been from Hong Kong to Singapore to India. Name it; it's the same everywhere. Jo: And it doesn't seem to matter if the culture is more advantaged or not? Deepak: No. It's even in all the Eastern European countries. Jo: What do you see as the motivating factor for people in all of these countries? Deepak: Again, it's part of the evolutionary process. We are not doing anything; understand that. We happen to be in the middle of it [this process]. There are seeds of awakening that are spontaneously sprouting. "The legacy of our predatory environment harks back to a very early stage of our evolution, and is frozen in an obsolete worldview." Jo: One of the presentations that you will be doing at the Body & Soul conference in Seattle in September is entitled "Thoughts for the New Millennium." Do you see some type of culmination point of this evolutionary awakening? Deepak: There is no culmination point. It's going to keep going. There is a saying that Rumi has: "When I die, I shall soar with angels. And when I die as an angel, what I shall become you cannot imagine." It's never a culmination. You get to what is called the event horizon, and then there's a new horizon. It is an ongoing, ever-expanding process of evolution. We are in the very early stages of it, and that's why everybody is excited and confused. It's going to go on for a long, long time. Jo: Do you see the 2000 (or any other) year mark as the big event that many people are saying it's going to be? Deepak: Only if you collectively intend it, yes. Otherwise, it's just another date. Jo: If we don't necessarily do anything and are just a part of the evolutionary process, how does collective intention fit in with the idea of spontaneous evolution? Deepak; Again, it's the sprouting of seeds. If they're meant to sprout at that moment, then we'll all be saying, "Okay, we have the collective intention of harmony, laughter, and love," and that's what the world will get. Whatever attention is put on anything, it blossoms. But dates are dates. The earth is still going to spin the way it always did and the planets are still going to move in the same cycle. A date by itself is not significant. The collective stream of intentionality and critical mass — that's what determines events. Jo: If there was only one concept that you would wish to get across to people, what would that be? Deepak: Get out of your tribal mind! The legacy of our predatory environment harks back to a very early stage of our evolution, and is frozen in an obsolete worldview. Embrace your universality. Jo: The way that people can do that is… Deepak: …to get in touch with their inner being through meditation. Jo: There are many forms of meditation. Some people follow their breath, while some people who practice Transcendental Meditation believe that the energy within the Sanskrit words are what transforms. Can you give me your views on meditation practice? Deepak: We use primordial sound, which is different from both of your examples. Anything that brings you in touch with the silent witness inside. Different things work for different people. I don't think there's any form of meditation that is necessarily unique. Jo: What are the benefits of meditation, and what can people expect from a meditation practice? Deepak: First of all, they can expect to become less stressed and lose their toxic habits. They begin to get in touch with peace of mind that they have never experienced before. Beyond that, there is intuition, creativity, vision, and an experience of the sacred. Jo: My experience with meditation practice is that as you begin to get in touch with your self, the phenomenal parts of yourself — strong emotions, habitual thought patterns, all of the things that people can consider as causing suffering in life — begin to surface. What is your advice for people who start a meditation practice that seems to go great at first, but then seems to "deteriorate"? Deepak: They should know that whatever is happening is what is supposed to be happening. When you start driving a car and you accelerate from 0 to 30 or 40 mph, it seems like it's going really fast. But then when you get to 30 mph and you go from 30 to 35 mph, it doesn't seem like you are making progress, but you are. Jo: Can you talk to me about your concept of love? Deepak: Love is the ultimate truth of the heart of creation. It is not a sentiment; it is not an emotion. It is the experience of unity consciousness, where it becomes impossible to hurt or be hurt. It is also the realization that at the core of your being there's a principle that orchestrates not only the activity of your own body-mind, but the body-mind of everything else that exists. When you get in touch with this core of your own being, you get in touch with the core of every other being. You recognize that there is no separation; we are all the same being in different disguises. It is the return of the memory of wholeness. Jo: What is your opinion of the great interest that is being focused on developing skills such as intuition, psychic ability, etc.? Deepak: They are spontaneous byproducts of evolution. We shouldn't get lost in them. Humans are at a stage of evolution where their perceptual and cognitive mechanisms are also evolving as a result of their reaching higher states of consciousness. Jo: Would you please describe yourself as you see yourself? Deepak: I see myself as an open-ended horizon who finds it very difficult to label or define himself, and, as the poet Rumi said, "in astounding lucid confusion." Deepak Chopra is among presenters at Body & Soul Seattle, a Weekend Conference of Healing and Spirit. The conference takes place September 17-19. For more information, see display ad in this issue or call (877) 944-3003.